1: And when the sabbath was past,
Mary Mag'dalene,
and Mary the mother of James, and Salo'me, bought spices, so that they
might go and anoint him. 2: And very early on the first day of the week
they went to the tomb when the sun had risen. 3: And they were saying
to
one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the
tomb?" 4: And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back; --
it
was very large. 5: And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting
on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were

amazed.6:
And he said to them, "Do not
be amazed;
you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not
here; see the place where they laid him. 7: But go, tell his disciples
and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see
him,
as he told you." 8: And they went out and fled from the tomb; for
trembling
and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to any one,
for they were afraid.

NOTES

1:
And when the
sabbath was past,
Mary Mag'dalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salo'me, bought
spices,
so that they might go and anoint him.

v1:
Zindler (2000) writes:

It
is interesting to note that Codex Bezae, which
has
so many important primitive readings that disagree with the so-called
received
text, renders the name Melegada, instead of Dalmanutha. In the margin
of
the text are instructions left by a later scribe telling how to alter
the
word Melegada -- which already had been converted into the word Magada
-- to turn it into something more like Magdala. "Insert dal after g,
erase
the da." We seem to be witnessing the birth of a star's hometown.

v1:
Whatever her origin, as Theissen and Merz (1998, p498) point
out,
Mary Magdalene comes first each time a group of women are listed in
every
one of the canonical gospels (Mark 15:40, 15:47, 16:1, Luke 8:2,
24:10).
Thus many exegetes assign her a place of importance in the early
Christian
tradition.

v1:
"bought spices" before sunrise on the day after Sabbath? Jewish or not,
it is highly unlikely that shops would be open at such as ungodly hour.
Arguing that there was no Jewish custom supporting the
women's
desire to anoint the body, Kirby (2002) writes:

"It comes as little surprise
then that Matthew and
John,
who are usually thought to have more knowledge of things Jewish, do not
state that the women came to anoint the body on Sunday morning."

v1:
In addition to the historical implausibility, another strike
against
this verse is the presence of the Markan theme of Jesus disciples' lack
of faith: although Jesus has said time and again that he will rise on
the
third day, the women have purchased spices in anticipation of
annointing
a dead body, not finding a resurrected man (Crossan 1998, p558).

2: And very
early on the
first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had risen.

v2:
Carrier (2005, p160) argues that the writer of Mark is tracking the
Septuagint of Psalm 24, for the Greek of "the first day of the week"
occurs only there in the entire OT. Our modern version, based on the
Hebrew, does not have that phrase. Thus v3:

Who shall
ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy
place?(RSV)

would be a reference to the young man in the tomb, while v7:

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient
doors! that the King of glory may come in. (RSV)

echoes the "gate" in Mark, the great stone in front of the tomb.
Carrier further argues that the writer of Mark has thus composed a
triplet of scenes: Psalm 22 for the Crucifixion, Psalm 23, a funeral
psalm, representing Christ's journey to the realm of the dead, and then
Psalm 24, representing his resurrection.

v2:
although some have argued that there is a contradiction between
"very early" and "the sun had risen" that is just typical Markan
doubling.

v2:
Doherty (1999) identifies this with Hosea 6:1-2:

1"Come, let us return to the
LORD . He has torn us
to
pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our
wounds.
2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore
us,
that we may live in his presence. (NIV)

and also Jonah, who was three days in belly of the whale. The
"three day" motif is also found in the sequence in which Joseph
interprets the dreams of the Pharoh's officials while in prison in
Egypt.

v2:
Richard Carrier (2004b) points out that the three day period was
customary in Judaism for determing that a person was indeed dead.

"...several
passages in the Midrash Rabbah, which
tie
into the Mishnah, suggest a third-day motif could have been latent
throughout
a Jewish understanding of the dead. These laws are especially relevant
to the passion narrative of Jesus, possibly inspiring the very idea
that
he was raised 'on the third day'..."

After listing and discussing some of the relevant passages
from the
rabbinical writings and the Torah, Carrier writes:

Thus, a resurrection on
the third day reverses the expectations of the Jews: to physicalists,
instead of departing, the soul of Jesus reunites with his body and
rises; to spiritualists, instead of departing, the soul of Jesus is
exalted by God, raised to his right side, thence to appear in visions
to the faithful. Either way, a resurrection before the third day might
not be a true resurrection, but a mere revival, or the ghost of a
not-yet-departed soul, but a resurrection on the third day is true
evidence that death was in either sense defeated. This "third day"
tradition in Jewish law may in fact be very ancient, possibly lying
behind the prophecy of Hosea, "He will revive us after two days, He
will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before him" (6.2),
and no doubt had something to do with Paul's conviction that Jesus "was
raised on the third day according to the scriptures" (1 Corinthians
15:4).

v2:
Crossan (2002) similarly observes:

Those who spoke of Jesus’
resurrection insisted that it was “after three days” or “on the third
day.”15 That was when, in Jewish tradition, it was customary to visit
the tomb not just for mourning but to make sure the person was
definitely dead. That, of course, is why Jesus waited until, Lazarus
had already been in the tomb four days” (John 11:17), until, that is,
he was securely and definitely dead. When Christian Jews spoke of
Jesus’resurrection after or on the third day, therefore, they were
insisting that he had been really and truly dead.

v2:
Carrier (2005, p159) points out that three-day motifs are widespread in
the OT. In addition to the passage in Hosea, 2 Kings 2:17 has the men
search for three days to find Elijah, but no trace of him is found:

2:17 But when they
urged him till he was ashamed, he said,
"Send." They sent therefore fifty men; and for three days they sought
him but did not find him.(RSV)

v2:
Another point of contact with Paul's letters, for 1 Cor 15 says that
Jesus was raised on the third day.

3: And they were
saying to one
another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the
tomb?"

When
all the flocks were gathered there, the
shepherds
would roll the stone away from the well's mouth and water the sheep.
Then
they would return the stone to its place over the mouth of the well.
(NIV)

v3:
The verse also makes the three women into fools, for why would
they
knowingly go to put spices on a body in a tomb whose covering stone
they
could not move? The visit of the women looks like literary invention
designed
to create witnesses to the Empty Tomb. It is important to note that
under
Jewish law women could not be "fully qualified as witnesses" (Theissen
and Merz 1998, p497). Markan irony at work again?

4: And looking up,
they saw that
the stone was rolled back; -- it was very large.

v4:
redactive -- the comment on size emphasizes the power of the
miracle.
Richard Carrier (1999) and other scholars have been wont to argue that
the stone "rolled" in front of the tomb is an anachronism dating Mark
to
after 70, since round stones were not used prior to that time on tombs
of commoners. However,
a square stone may also be "rolled" in some sense, so the wording,
while
strongly suggestive, is not conclusive.

v4:
Carrier (2005,p221,286fn) observes echoes of the story of King Asa in 2
Chronicles.

2 Chron 16:14: They buried
him in the tomb which he had hewn out for
himself in the city of David. They laid him on a bier which had been
filled with various kinds of spices prepared by the perfumer's art; and
they made a very great fire in his honor.(RSV)

Note that both Jesus and Asa are laid in tombs hewn from rock. The
"very great" is used in both passages, and the burial is connected to
spices (aromata, same word in
both passages in Greek). Carrier also points out that the tomb is
called "his own," an addition of Matthew's to the story in his account
of the Empty Tomb. Matthew frequently returned to the OT to find the
sources of Mark's stories and add more details.

5:
And
entering the tomb,
they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white
robe;
and they were amazed.

v5: This
of course recalls the young man of Mark 14:51-2. As McVann (1994)
points out, many exegetes have seen the idea of a baptismal initiate in
the sequence, with the young man starting out naked in Mark 14:51-2,
like an initiate, and then re-appearing in Mark 16:5 in white, like a
new initiate.

v5:
Ludemann sees a
possible parallel with 2 Macc 3:26 (2001, p113) but other than the idea
of heavenly young men, the two passages do not have much directly in
common.
However, the young men in 2 Macc 3:26 are saving the Temple from being
plundered and destroyed. Plundered and destroyed temples are a theme of
the writer's citations -- for example, his use of Nehemiah and Jeremiah
in Mark
11:15-19, and the use of Jehu's cleansing of the Temple of Ba'al as
a framework for his own Temple Cleansing, and the use of Mal 3 in Mk
1:2. So perhaps there is a link, especially as one of the stories
underlying the Temple Cleansing may well be 2 Macc.

v5:
The young man also recalls the young man of Tobit 5:14 who is also
an
angel. This is a more probable origin for the scene, for Tobit is a
story
about a problem arising from a burial. Daniel J.
Harrington (1999, p12-3)
writes:

"In
addition
to the Hebrew Bible, the author probably drew on the story or motif of
'the grateful dead.' What initially got Tobit into trouble was his zeal
in seeing to the burial of fellow Israelites. He first loses all his
property
(see 1:20) and then is struck blind after having attended to a burial
at
Pentecost (see 2:7-10). When Tobit is healed and Raphael reveals
himself
as the angel of God sent to heal him, a major reason was to repay
Tobit's
willingness to bury the dead (see 12:13)."

In Tobit also the blind are healed and demons are driven out.

v5:
Crossan (1998, p567) notes that Matthew and Luke, who copied Mark,
eliminated the young man of 14:51, and changed the young man of 16:5 to
an angel. "No other canonical dependent accepts Mark's strange 'young
man.' It is too Markan."(p567).

v5:
"amazed" is another instance of the unique verb for amazement
found
only in Mark, and may be a sign of a redactor's hand. (Koester 1990,
p284).

v5:
Robert Price (2000, p214-21) has shown that empty tombs and
resurrection
scenes were a staple of early Greek and Roman popular romances,
occuring
in such stories as Chaereas and Callirhoe, Xenophon's Ephesian
Tale, Leucippe and Clitophon, Daphnis and Chloe,
Heliodorus' Ethiopian
Story, The Story of Apollonius, King of Tyre, Iamblichus' Babylonian
Story, and in places in Apuleius' The Golden Ass.

v5:
the young man is sitting on the right side. Jesus has
just
said in 14:62 that they would see him sitting at the right hand of the
Power.

v5:
Cliff Carrington (Flavian
Testament) is one of a minority of exegetes who see a close
relationship between Josephus
and the New Testament. Carrington
observes:

"He descended into
the cave. So, for two days he continued in hiding. On the third, his
secret was revealed by a woman who had been with them. The death of J.
was found to be a fiction, it became known that he was alive.”

"This is a description of a resurrection after three days in a cave.
No, J. is not Jesus, but Josephus. This is from the account of the fall
of Jotapata where Josephus hides in a cave for three days before he was
found out by a captured woman who knew of their hiding place. He arose
from the cave. After a short time he ascended to the right hand of the
Father, Vespasian, the Emperor. Josephus went on to live in the mansion
of his Lord."

6: And he said to
them, "Do not
be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen,
he is not here; see the place where they laid him.

v6:
the Greek says "Nazarene" not "Nazareth." This verse constitutes
supernatural
fulfillment
of earlier predictions of Jesus in Mark 8, 9, and 10. As Peter Kirby
(2002)
notes, this story is found only in Mark and in documents dependent on
it.
It is not found in Paul, which scholars believe constitutes the
earliest
version of the Jesus stories.

v6:
Weeden (1971) notes that prior to Mark, traditional proof of the
resurrection for Christians had been the appearances of Jesus to his
followers. Here the writer creates proof by the testimony of an angel,
rather than direct experience of Jesus.

7: But go, tell his
disciples
and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see
him,
as he told you."

v7:
Another prediction that Jesus will appear in Galilee and hence,
evidence
that the Gospel once had a more complete ending. Both the underlying
idea and
the words -- "go before" -- parallel Mark 14:28.

v7: As
Robert Fowler (1996) has pointed out, if the reader had no idea from
the other gospels that Judas had killed himself, he would have to
assume that Judas was among those supposed to meet Jesus in Galilee.

v7:
Fowler (1996) writes:

"Another puzzle here is
what Galilee is. We might once have thought that we understood what
Galilee was, when Jesus began his ministry there back in Mark 1:14-15,
but through what kind of Galilee does a crucified and raised Jesus now
walk? In retrospect, Galilee may alway have been more of a metaphor of
space rather than a literal geopolitical region, but all the more so
now. Whatever Galilee was before, it is now obviously a figure for
wherever it is that the crucified Nazarene "goes ahead" of his
disciples."(p248)

v7:
Carrier (2005, p162-63) writes:

"Orphic Mysteries were one
of the most popular categories of salvation cult in the ancient world,
widely known to everyone. A common motif was that initiates would be
taught the secret of eternal life, which often included instructions to
follow after they died. Several metal plates preserving secret
instructions have been recovered from the graves of initiates. The best
example, from around 400 BCE (and thus contemporary with Plato) is the
Gold Leaf of Hipparion. Though this preserves the instructions in a
significantly older form, and in a different dialect, than what would
be known to Mark, the links remain startling and informative. According
to the plate, when an initiate enters the land of the dead, they will
find "a white cypress" on "the right-hand side" (leuka and dexia). In Mark 16:5, when the
women enter the tomb (the land of the dead), they find a "boy in white"
on "the right-hand side" (leuken
and dexiois). The initiate is
told go beyond the white
cypress, where guardians of the sacred waters will ask them "What are
you looking for in the land of the dead?" In Mark, too, the women are
searching for something in the land of the dead: Jesus, the water of
life. Yet they, too, are supposed to go further (physically, to
Galilee); but psychologically, to a recognition of the truth), for they
are told that though they are "looking for Jesus," he is not there
(Mark 16:6)."

8:
And they went out
and fled
from the tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and
they
said nothing to any one, for they were afraid.

v8:
This ending as it stands is enigmatic and to some, quite
beautiful.
The term "the disciples and Peter" may recall the passage in 1 Cor
where
"Cephas and the disciples" see the Risen Jesus.

v8:
The ending of the Gospel is truncated (see Excursus below). The other
known endings are all later creations.

v8: Darrell Doughty (2000) writes:

"A problem that has
always exercised interpreters of Mark is the fact that the story
concludes in 16:1-8 without any resurrection appearances of Jesus. All
we have is an angel who tells the women that Jesus is risen and will
meet them and his disciples in Galilee. We are also told that the women
fled, saying nothing to anyone, which leaves only Peter and the
disciples as to meet Jesus after his resurrection. I would suggest that
the story is continued in chapter 1, where following his "death and
resurrection" (1:9-10), Jesus enters into Galilee, meets his disciples
by the Sea, and makes them "fishers of men" (1:14-21). Robert Fowler
rightly observes that "the awkward gar at Mark 16:8, coupled
with the ambiguous allusion to Galilee in 16:7, signals the reader to
return to the beginning of the Gospel, to begin reading all over again"
(Let the Reader Understand, 262)."

v8: Carrier (2004c) observes:

"But we have one definite
proof that the resurrection motif in fiction
predates the 1st century: the Latin satire of that very genre, The
Satyricon
by Petronius. This is positively dated to around 60 A.D. (Petronius was
killed under the reign of Nero, and makes fun of social circumstances
created by the early Caesars) and is a full-fledged travel-narrative
just like Acts, with a clear religious motif. However, Petronius is
making fun of that motif, and also writing in Latin, yet we know the
genre began in the Greek language. Thus, in order for Petronius to move
the genre into Latin and make fun of it, it must have
pre-existed the time of his writing and been popular enough to draw his
attention. Indeed, the satire itself may actually have existed in a
Greek form before Petronius took it up: P. Parsons, "A Greek Satyricon?"
Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
18 (1971) pp. 53ff. It should be noted that Petronius pokes fun at the
resurrection theme in section 140.frg2, where the hero compares his
restoration from impotence to the "resurrected Protesilaus," and
attributes it to Mercury's known role in "bringing back the dead."
Similarly, Plutarch relates a spoof of the motif in popular theatre,
where a performing dog acts out its death and resurrection on stage to
the delight of the emperor Vespasian ("On the Cleverness of Animals," Moralia
973e-974a). In order to have something to spoof, the motif must predate
the year 80."

v8: Weeden (1971) writes:

"For Mark, the fact and
reality of the resurrection is attested by the story of the empty
grave. To state the matter in this fashion is no glib rhetoric. Such a
statement speaks to a curious and puzzling phenomenon. Before Mark
there is no evidence that the early church ever sought to verify its
resurrection fath through recourse to Jesus' empty tomb. Nor is there
any hard evience that the early church ever knew of Jesus' grave's
being empty."(p102)

v8: David Rhoads (2004) writes:

"Perhaps it is the
sublety and ambiguity of Mark's marvelously exasperating ending that
explains why so many studies of Mark focus on the disciples."(p9)

Historical
Commentary

Ludemann (2001, p114) notes: "It is doubtful whether a
complete story
about the tomb existed before Mark, as the text is overlaid with Markan
redaction." Similarly, Kirby (2002) and Crossan (1998) argue that the
empty
Tomb story is a post-easter fiction. Kirby writes, in discussing James
Dunn's idea that early Christians did not venerate the Tomb precisely
because
it was empty, concludes:

"I
agree that it would be most reasonable to
conclude
that early Christians did not know that Jesus was resting in his tomb
because
we would then expect tomb veneration. I agree that this is evidence
against
knowledge of a full tomb. But I would state further that this is
equally
evidence against knowledge of an empty tomb. It is plain to see that
the
site of the tomb of Jesus would become a site of veneration and
pilgrimage
among early Christians regardless of whether it were full or empty. The
factors of nagging doubt, pious curiousity, and liturgical significance
would all contribute towards the empty tomb becoming a site of intense
interest among Christians. Contrary to Dunn, and in agreement with
Peter
Carnley, the obvious explanation is that early Christians had no idea
where
Jesus was buried....For this reason, the fact that there was no tomb
veneration
indicates that the early Christians did not know the location of the
tomb
of Jesus, neither of an empty tomb nor of a full tomb" (2002, p 201-2)

OT creation may also be at work here, in two ways. Recall
Mark's previous
dependence on the Elijah-Elisha Cycle:

Mark
16: 6-8

2
Kgs
13: 20-1

The dead
are raised

The
dead
are raised

(young man
at tomb)

(the raised man on his feet)

the women
are frightened

the pallbearers are frightened

the tomb is
Jesus'

the tomb is Elisha's

In addition to this, the book of Daniel has structured the
overall narrative
of Jesus trial, death, and resurrection.

Mark

Daniel
6

The
chief priests and scribes
try to
trap Jesus
with arguments over the law

The
satraps and adminstrators
trap
Daniel with a
law

Joseph
of Arimathea, a leader
of the
nation opposed
to the spokesman for the people of God secretly reveres Jesus (as
Pilate
becomes steadily more Christianized in Christian legend, he assumes
this
role)

Darius a
leader of the nation
opposed to the spokesman
for the people of God secretly reveres Daniel

the
death of Jesus is required
by
law (implied in Mark)

the death
of Daniel is
required by
the law of the
Medes and Persians

Pilate
is reluctant to execute
Jesus, tries to convince
crowd to let him go

Darius is
reluctant to put
Daniel in
the lion's
den, Darius exerts himself until evening to save Daniel

Pilate,
though distressed, is
forced
to put Jesus
in a tomb

Darius,
though distressed, is
forced
to put Daniel
into a lion's den

Joseph
of Arimathea looks
forward to
the kingdom
of God

Dairus
tells Daniel his god
will
save him

At
dawn, as soon as it was
light,
the women who
cared deeply for Jesus go to his tomb

Just after
sunrise Darius who
cares
deeply for Daniel
goes to the lion's den.

Joyful
news: Jesus is raised!

Joyful
news: Daniel lives

A
mysterious young man,
perhaps an
angel, announces
the news

An angel
shut the lion's mouths

Adapted
from
Helms (1988, p135)

Carrier (2005b) observes that Matthew makes this dependence on
Dan 6 very clear. Not only does Matthew retain the parallels to Daniel
6, he also notes that a seal was placed on Jesus' tomb, just as Darius
placed a seal on the stone (Dan 6:17). Matthew uses the same word for
seal, sphragizo, that the
Greek of the Septaugint uses. Matthew's perception that Dan 6 underlies
this scene is further evidence for the existence of the parallel.

There were also
women looking
on from afar, among whom
were Mary Mag'dalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of
Joses,
and Salo'me, who, when he was
in Galilee,
followed him, and
ministered
to him; and also many other women
who came up with him to
Jerusalem.

B

And when
evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day
before the sabbath,

C

Joseph
of Arimathe'a, a respected member of the council, who was also himself
looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate, and
asked for the body of Jesus.

D

And Pilate wondered
if he were
already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was
already dead. And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead,
he granted the body to Joseph.

D

And he bought a
linen shroud,
and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud, and laid him in a
tomb which had been hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a stone against
the door of the tomb.

C

Mary
Mag'dalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.

B

And when
the sabbath was past, Mary Mag'dalene, and Mary the mother of James,
and Salo'me, bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.

A

And very
early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun
had risen.

Although the center may not look like a doublet, count the
number of concrete actions in each one.

It is impossible to reconstruct a chiasm from the remaining
verses.

2: And very early
on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had
risen. 3: And they were saying to one another, "Who will
roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?" 4: And looking up, they saw that the stone was
rolled back; -- it was very large. 5: And entering the tomb, they saw a young man
sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were
amazed. 6: And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you seek
Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see
the place where they laid him. 7: But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is
going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you." 8: And they went out and fled from the tomb; for
trembling and astonishment had come upon them; and they said nothing to
any one, for they were afraid.

There is no A' bracket to oppose v2, a bracket involving
movement from one geographical location to another. v8 resembles a very
typical B' bracket that should be followed by an A' bracket reading, in
typical Markan style, something like: "And they returned to
Jerusalem."

A

And
very
early on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun
had risen.

B

And they were saying to one another,
"Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb?"

C

And looking up, they saw that the stone
was rolled back; -- it was very large.

D

And entering the
tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a
white robe; and they were amazed.

D

And he said to them,
"Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He
has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him. But go,
tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee;
there you will see him, as he told you."

C

And they went out and fled from the
tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come upon them;

B

and they said nothing to any one, for
they were afraid.

A

It was the last day
of the feast of the unleavened bread and many people were going out,
returning to their houses since the festival was over. (Gospel of Peter)

The lack of an A bracket to oppose 16:2 suggests that the
Gospel originally ended at some point past 16:8, and that the current
ending was not in fact the original ending.

William Lane Craig, a well-known Christian apologist and
debater, has
argued that this
is a historical event. This article has been comprehensively
refuted
by Richard Carrier here
and by Jeffery Jay Lowder here.

The presence of Markan stylistic elements, creation from
existing older
sources, historical implausibilities, and the powerful presence of the
supernatural indicate
that there is no
support for historicity from this pericope.

Excursus: The Missing
Ending of Mark

The Gospel of Mark currently ends at 16:8. This ending has always made
readers uneasy, and in antiquity there were several attempts to graft
an ending onto Mark. These endings are all considered spurious by the
scholarly community. Basically, the current ending offers the reader
the choice: did the writer mean for the Gospel to end at 16:8, or did
the writer supply another one that has gone AWOL somehow?

Evidence from the Patristic fathers indicates that if the ending went
AWOL, it did so quite early, for Longer Ending (Mark 16:9-20), found in
some Bibles, is known from sometime early in the second half of the
second century. Around that time it was incorporated into a harmony of
the four Gospels known as the Diatesseron and generally attributed to
Tatian, a heretic who was a student of Justin Martyr's in Rome in the
middle of the second century. However, the Longer Ending was apparently
unknown to Origen, and Jerome and Eusebius claimed that it was absent
from almost all the Greek manuscripts they knew (Donahue and Harrington
2002, p462).

In addition to the Longer Ending, there is also a Shorter Ending found
in Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Coptic manuscripts. That ending consists
of a few sentences in which the women report briefly to Peter. It is
then reported that Jesus appeared to the disciples, and then sent them
forth to proclaim the "sacred and incorruptible" message of eternal
salvation. The style and vocabulary are decidedly unMarkan.

The so-called Freer Logion adds a number of verses to the Longer
Ending. It is generally regarded as scribal gloss inserted to soften
the Risen Jesus' criticism of the Eleven in 16:14. (Donahue and
Harrington 2002, p463).

Against these, Evan Powell proposed in his 1994 book The Unfinished Gospel that the
ending of John, John 21, was formerly the ending of Mark. Powell's
argument was based on linguistic and stylistic affinities. David Ross
has an excellent
review of the idea on his Mark website, along with more evidence to
bolster it.